CVE-2025-38049 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Severity

55%

Complexity

18%

Confidentiality

60%

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/resctrl: Fix allocation of cleanest CLOSID on platforms with no monitors Commit 6eac36bb9eb0 ("x86/resctrl: Allocate the cleanest CLOSID by searching closid_num_dirty_rmid") added logic that causes resctrl to search for the CLOSID with the fewest dirty cache lines when creating a new control group, if requested by the arch code. This depends on the values read from the llc_occupancy counters. The logic is applicable to architectures where the CLOSID effectively forms part of the monitoring identifier and so do not allow complete freedom to choose an unused monitoring identifier for a given CLOSID. This support missed that some platforms may not have these counters. This causes a NULL pointer dereference when creating a new control group as the array was not allocated by dom_data_init(). As this feature isn't necessary on platforms that don't have cache occupancy monitors, add this to the check that occurs when a new control group is allocated.

CVSS 3.1 Base Score 5.5. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

Demo Examples

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

While there are no complete fixes aside from conscientious programming, the following steps will go a long way to ensure that NULL pointer dereferences do not occur.


               
}
/* make use of pointer1 *//* ... */

If you are working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the if statement; and unlock when it has finished.

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

This example takes an IP address from a user, verifies that it is well formed and then looks up the hostname and copies it into a buffer.


               
}
strcpy(hostname, hp->h_name);/*routine that ensures user_supplied_addr is in the right format for conversion */

If an attacker provides an address that appears to be well-formed, but the address does not resolve to a hostname, then the call to gethostbyaddr() will return NULL. Since the code does not check the return value from gethostbyaddr (CWE-252), a NULL pointer dereference would then occur in the call to strcpy().

Note that this example is also vulnerable to a buffer overflow (see CWE-119).

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

In the following code, the programmer assumes that the system always has a property named "cmd" defined. If an attacker can control the program's environment so that "cmd" is not defined, the program throws a NULL pointer exception when it attempts to call the trim() method.


               
cmd = cmd.trim();

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

This application has registered to handle a URL when sent an intent:


               
}......
}
}
int length = URL.length();
...

The application assumes the URL will always be included in the intent. When the URL is not present, the call to getStringExtra() will return null, thus causing a null pointer exception when length() is called.

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